Tips on Managing Your License Agreement

In the current regulatory climate, especially with the recent Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) legislation, it is a key business imperative to have robust and flexible procedures in place to monitor and control software assets. Failure to do so may lead to financial inaccuracies impacting corporate governance.

Oracle recognizes that it is sometimes difficult for our Customers and Partners to manage their use of Oracle software. As a result, Customers and Partners can find themselves in a position where they do not have active control over their license deployment and usage.

By not fully understanding or managing their license agreements, Customers and Partners are putting themselves at risk of not being licensed correctly. License Management Services (LMS) are a unique global team of experts within Oracle who are equipped to provide license education, tools, and advice to Customers and Partners ensuring that they have the most appropriate license structure that meets their business needs.

In addition to the services available through the LMS organization, here are some practical suggestions to help you manage your Oracle software assets.

• Review your Oracle license agreements to understand your specific license terms and conditions. Please contact Oracle if you need help with this process.
• Communicate and educate the Oracle users on licensed rights as defined in the license agreements.
• If you are an Oracle Partner, please ensure that your membership is up to date, and that you regularly review the Oracle Partner Network website for updates, news, training, and events.
• Stay up to date with Oracle's licensing policies and business practices by regularly checking the Oracle website at http://www.oracle.com/corporate/pricing/index.html. Oracle provides many resources on the website such as the Software Investment Guide, latest pricelist and information on specialty licensing related topics.

• Document and maintain a complete listing of applications and databases in use, and details of your hardware environment throughout your organization. Changes to your hardware environment are likely to impact your licensing levels, such as licensing minimums, which is hardware dependent.
• Develop a user management process that accurately tracks the life cycle of Oracle users, from the time they are first provided access to Oracle based systems, to when they leave the organization. Maintaining an accurate count of Oracle users and what Oracle systems they have access to, is a key component in successfully managing Oracle licenses.
• Perform regular usage measurements across the company and develop procedures where individual Oracle users must report usage statistics. These usage statistics should then be consolidated.